reflections on surviving and thriving in Western secular higher education today

Nicholas Wolterstorff on transforming your discipline: Be patient and don’t jump on bandwagons

Speaking at the Centre for Christian Thought (CCT) conference at Biola University in 2012, Nicholas Wolterstorff touched on a point that many young Christian academics worry about, and that caused me a lot of anxiety in the early days.

His talk was entitled ‘Fides quaerens intellectum’, faith seeking understanding, and among other topics he answered a question asking to what extent Christian scholars working in secular universities should expect to transform their disciplines in the image of Christ. Wolterstorff’s advice: be patient, ‘you don’t always have to say everything you think’, and ‘don’t jump on bandwagons’. The relevant clip starts at at 59.40 in the video below:

The whole talk is well worth listening to. Wolterstorff begins with his advice to young scholars contemplating a career in academia. He asks them three questions: Do you love it, are you good at it, and is it worthwhile? Combined with prayer, those three questions are the first step on the path to making a wise decision.